Undercover Policing

Abstract

Undercover policing carries a tremendous responsibility for interdicting crime and political violence by preventive infiltration of criminal organizations to disrupt their operations and bring their perpetrators to justice. As much of this process involves the skillful manipulation of human relationships, psychology has a vital role to play in all major phases of undercover work. This article will describe the role of psychological services in team formation, selection and training of undercover officers (UCOs), preparation for undercover operations, deployment and monitoring, termination and reintegration, and managing deployment stress and post-operation psychological syndromes.

Introduction

Police personnel working undercover assignments risk detection and violent retribution. In addition to this ever present danger, this work is physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding. The anecdotal reputation of this aspect of policing is that the human cost, in terms of psychological and psychiatric sequelae, is high. Law enforcement agencies have found undercover operations to be an effective alternative, as well as a supplement, to traditional investigative approaches (Vasquez & Kelly, 1989). Since the 1960s, in the U.S.A. and elsewhere, undercover policing has secured a firm position within many law enforcement agencies. Despite the not infrequent use of police personnel in this role, there is scant literature concerning the psychological aspects of undercover policing. Girodo's 1985 paper remains the classic reference. There exists in the popular press a variety of accounts of undercover policing, and similarities may be found in the recollections of Allied agents working in occupied France during World War II (Buckmaster, 1955; Foot, 1984)....